April 1, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode of the Christian Book Blurb podcast, host Matt McChlery engages with author Adam Mabry about his book 'When God Seems Gone.' They explore the struggles of faith, particularly when God feels distant or silent. Adam shares personal experiences that inspired his writing, emphasizing the importance of lamentation, understanding God's timing, and navigating disappointment. The conversation highlights the need for honest questioning in faith and the role of personal growth in deepening one's relationship with God.
Links
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Get a copy of 'When God Seems Gone' from St Andrews Bookshop
Visit Matt McChlery's website mattmcchlery.com
Visit Adam Mabry's website adammabry.org
Takeaways
- The struggles of faith are common and important to address.
- Lamentation is a necessary part of the Christian experience.
- God's silence can be an opportunity for deeper conversation.
- Disappointment often arises from unmet expectations.
- Understanding God's timing requires trust in His greater plan.
- Questions about faith should not lead to guilt.
- Expressing pain and grief is essential for spiritual health.
- Expectations can lead to disappointment if not managed well.
- Personal growth is crucial for effective faith stewardship.
- The journey of faith involves navigating complex emotions.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the Struggles of Faith 02:49 The Importance of Lamentation 05:48 Understanding God's Silence 09:04 The Anatomy of Disappointment 11:55 Navigating Expectations and Reality 14:59 The Nature of God's Timing 18:05 The Role of Personal Growth in Faith 21:00 Exploring Adam's Journey and Insights 23:51 Conclusion and Future Aspirations
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is Christian Book Blurb brought to you by author and songwriter Matt McChlery Get abehind the scenes glimpse into the lives of some of your favourite Christian authors, hear
about their books and faith.
Also, why not check out my website, mattmcchlery.com
Hello and welcome to the Christian Book Blurb podcast where we like to encourage you inyour discipleship one book at a time.
(00:26):
And we do this by meeting some amazing Christian authors and hearing all about theirbooks, their lives and their faith.
Thank you so much for clicking over here and joining me today.
I'm your host, McChlery.
Now on today's show, I'm chatting about a topic that some people might be struggling with,but I still think is a really important part of our discipleship.
(00:49):
is our struggles.
And we're talking about when God seems gone.
And it gives me great pleasure to welcome onto the show the author of this book, AdamMabry.
Hello, Adam.
Hello, thanks for having me.
Thanks for joining us.
Now your book, When God Seems Gone, uses personal accounts to reflect upon and ask somequestions, quite searching questions that we can all struggle with from time to time.
(01:18):
So can you just tell us what was the inspiration behind writing this book?
Yeah.
I mean, as you can imagine, it's nothing particularly lovely because to write a booktitled When God Seems Gone is not going be a happy story.
My family and I, so I'm the founding senior pastor of a church here in Boston and where Ilive.
(01:44):
during the time of my ministry and our lives here, just over the last 10 years, my familyand I have had
a long term illness inside our family that we've been dealing with.
The nature of the illness is such that it wouldn't be appropriate for me at this point inthe history of our family to go into super great detail.
(02:04):
let's just say there's been a long term illness inside our family that's affected both amember of our family and therefore all of us that has just been super hard, super, super
hard, way harder than we ever thought.
And during that time, our
Our faith hasn't been shaken like theologically.
It hasn't gone to like a, you know, how could a loving God or, where, where is thesovereignty of God and human suffering?
(02:30):
those theological questions and even the experiential outcomes of those theologicalquestions were settled for me long ago.
But the, the brass tacks, the dirt under the fingernails walking with God, when it justdoesn't feel like he's very close, is really what, what the experience has been like.
and what the book was really about and how to deal with the experiential emotional gap ofknowing that God is there, but sometimes feeling like he's not, especially in a cultural
(03:00):
moment right now where I don't know what it's like for all of the listeners, but you know,where I live, I pastor an enormous amount of university students.
And so, though I am aging, my congregation is perpetually the same sort of age.
and this rising generation has been taught largely to think with their feelings.
(03:22):
And so it seems to me a highly relevant question.
What do you do when God feels or seems gone?
Even when you know, theologically and biblically, he of course is not.
Hmm, they're really interesting.
I guess sometimes we feel guilty for, for questioning our faith or questioning Godsometimes.
(03:43):
Do you think we should feel guilty or, or is this questioning part of having a healthykind of faith?
I don't know that it's super useful to feel guilty about questions.
Questions just sort of present themselves to us and I'm sure at all that the Lord requiresus to feel guilt and shame about questions.
(04:05):
I God's a big boy, if you like.
mean, he can definitely handle our questions and we are not the first people to, the firstgeneration or the first people within the history of the church to go, hang on a minute.
This feels rather a lot harder than
I thought it was going to be.
And wait, where did you go?
(04:25):
Especially in one's walk with God because it is just that.
It is a relationship that we are experiencing and growing in with our Father.
And just like any relationship, especially one's relationship with one's parents, itmatures and changes over time.
When you're very little, your parents are right there and they're kind of your wholeworld.
(04:47):
And as you get older, your relationship with them hopefully matures and changes, but theway they relate to you also changes.
And as God seeks to grow us up, it stands to reason sometimes that he relates to usdifferently, which can feel bad.
But no, I don't think we at all ought to feel guilt about asking the question.
(05:09):
If anything, bringing the question, God, where are you?
I think is precisely what we're supposed to do.
It's seeking for him in those times, rather than running away from him.
Yeah, well, that's and as you said at the start of the podcast that it's not a happy storythat led you to to write the book.
(05:33):
You also speak in a chapter in your book called When God Seems Silent, you speak about thecritical necessity of lamentation.
And can you explain to us what is
Lamentation, why is it important?
Yeah.
So I'm a musician by training.
(05:53):
My undergrad degrees in music, my wife and I were big music nerds.
And one of the downsides of being a music nerd is that you can never just enjoy music.
You're always thinking about what you're hearing.
And one of the things I've often thought about are worship music in the church,particularly in like the
(06:15):
evangelical church ever since the last, don't know, 30, 40 years of modern Christianmusic.
A lot to love, but most of our songs are in major keys and most of them are pretty happy.
And the good part about that is there's a lot to be happy about with the Lord and a lot torejoice in.
The bad part about that is we've lost the art of singing our sadness to the Lord.
(06:40):
We've forgotten that an enormous number of the Psalms are
definitely in minor keys.
Definitely the color blue.
That we have a whole book in our Bible called Lamentations precisely to give us languageand contours of prayer to take, to take really hard and difficult experiences and emotions
to the Lord.
(07:01):
Because when you're discipled by, you know, our church liturgies, which I know, you know,sort of in evangelicalism, we don't like the word liturgy, perhaps, but we're all, we all
have them, right?
Just the kind of the
the things we do in church, disciple us.
so we're shaped by the songs we sing and the things that we do and the sermons we hear tojust sort of have a, you know, three and a half happy songs, three point sermon that all
(07:25):
starts with the same letter kind of When we are crashed into by something hard in life,that's not enough.
And so happily, we are part of a long, you know, 2000 year Christian tradition.
know, 1500
or so years of Jewish writings before that that give us a lot of language for lament.
(07:47):
And so the critical necessity of lament is learning how to take the language of the Bibleand grieve up to God, not just hold on to it and get bitter at him.
Because if we don't express our grief to God in prayer and lament, trusting that like,he's really good in the midst of all of our really cruddy circumstances, what we will end
up doing
is stuffing that down deep inside.
(08:09):
And that is just the emotional equivalent of high interest credit card debt.
Eventually, the bill comes due and it's a way higher toll than if we just dealt with it inthe first place.
And that's often where I think we end up deconstructing and feeling terrible.
My own experience as a pastor has been a lot that's kind of come around this recentpopular, I'm going to deconstruct my faith movement.
(08:35):
Man isn't really
any original questions about God's goodness or the nature of faith and science.
It's just pain, undealt with pain, unpastured pain, un lamented pain.
We're not the first people to hurt, but we may be the first people to not really know whatto do with our hurt well.
so, yeah, lament is a hugely important part of our discipleship.
(08:58):
And happily, the teaches us how to do it if we'll just read the songbook of the Bible.
Yeah, Learning how to express our pain and our grief is very important.
And as you say, there is language for it in the Bible.
And I guess when you're speaking of sort of modern worship music and songs as well, that'sdefinitely an area where I think you're right.
(09:21):
More language needs to be given so that people have the opportunity to express that griefand that lament.
I guess...
when everything's happy all the time, it also starts to veer towards everyone sticking ontheir happy mask and go, I'm all right, bless you.
(09:43):
But actually, they're crying inside and church should be a safe place for you to come tobe emotional, cry, to lament and reach out to God in the midst of your distress.
rather than just the happy place you go to smile and sing some good songs and drink somecoffee.
(10:09):
Yeah, that's really good.
You also mentioned in your book about God being silent.
There are times in life where we feel that God might have gone or is silent or notanswering our prayers, maybe in the way that we think he should sometimes, that's part of
the problem.
But what should our response be in those times when
(10:32):
when God seems silent to us, how should we respond correctly?
Yeah, well, I talked about in the book, like, if he seems like he's silent, in there,there's an easy answer that that might be the case.
And like other really complicated answer.
The easy answer is like, well, sin, right.
So if I'm grievously sinning, and I don't feel like the Lord is close, like, yeah, ofcourse.
(10:57):
If I if I sin against you or my friend or my wife, and then it feels like my relationshipwith with any of those three parties is not particularly good, like, yeah, no, duh.
On the other hand, the more complicated question is, well, if I'm not, or I don't knowthat I am, if I'm doing my part to follow Christ and he seems silent, then what do do?
(11:19):
Silence is often a gap where the Lord wants to talk to us about something deeper in myexperience.
way more spiritually deep men and women have written about this than me.
And this is, course, the tradition of like the dark night of the soul.
there's a lot to be mined here within
the Christian literary tradition.
(11:41):
But I would just say a few things.
One, God is always talking to us in his word, even if it doesn't feel as though he'stalking to us like in our inner lives through his spirit.
which is what you were talking about earlier on.
Yes, and while our feelings are super super important, they're only really good at tellingus how we feel They're not good at telling us about what is true And so we should pay
(12:05):
attention to them as a reflection of like what we feel I'm not advocating for stoicism andlike ignoring how you feel that's just foolishness but I'm I'm trying to pull us back from
the thing inside you and what you feel inside is like the most important thing about youor even a really highly important thing or a theologically important thing
for you to know things about God.
(12:26):
It is merely one data point about you understanding you, but it's a terrible way for youto know God apart from his word.
So God's always speaking in his word.
Secondly, I would say when God is silent, don't return the favor.
Like don't give God the silent treatment.
That's not what it's for.
(12:46):
Oftentimes pauses are actually pregnant spaces that are designed to get something likedeeper out of you.
I've found
And just, I was just doing this the other day.
I was just with a friend on the other side of the country, walking through a forest,talking to Jesus.
And I kind of exhausted my list of the things I like to talk about.
(13:08):
Like, okay, Lord, I want to pray about my church and like my family and my kids.
you know, it kind of got through like, you know, my money and like my future and like didall my things.
And I kind of felt like, oh, oh, I forgot that Lord, is there anything you would like totalk about?
And there are moments where I think sometimes God is silent because he wants to dig out adeeper kind of prayer and a deeper kind of conversation with us that only him sort of
(13:38):
waiting out our prattling on will actually get to.
Now, maybe it's just me who prattles on.
Perhaps not every listener is like that.
But man, I've got a bullet pointed list of stuff I pray.
I'm pretty systematic in my just approach to life, got a calendar, got it to do us.
And I do the same thing with prayers.
I've got people I pray for and ways I pray, know, building your own rule of life is verypopular right now.
(14:00):
I do all that stuff.
That's great.
But there's a moment where when God's silent and we get really uncomfortable in that, Ithink God's wanting to draw something out of us that's a little deeper than those things.
your book you ask what you call the million dollar question so that was that was gold tome I thought brilliant he's asked the million dollar question so I'd better ask it right
(14:24):
back which is basically why does God act so slowly?
God acts slowly.
Man, his relationship to time is frustratingly different than mine.
It's like, it's like, you know, when the Lord says, behold, I am coming quickly.
And the Bible ends, yes, Lord, even so come quickly.
(14:45):
Jesus kind of ends.
Man, your, your experience of quickly and my experience of quickly do not mean the samething.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I suppose when you, when you've
created stars and galaxies and you have eons to wait for things to happen.
Your feelings about the word quickly are different than, you know, say mine.
(15:13):
God acts slowly because he is, man, he's making the trillion year play and he's doing atrillion things at once.
And thinking about things in those timescales does kind of put things in differentperspectives.
Like he is not just interested in Adam Mabry's joy at the age of 41 as a pastor in Bostontoday, like locked in where my life is.
(15:36):
He has ordered history from creation to
cross and resurrection to consummation.
He's ordered history for Adam Mabry's joy 10 trillion years into forever being distinctlybetter than the day before.
(15:57):
And like, so all of his plans and all of his providences and not just mine, of course, butlike his people's and also our joy in him being somehow extrapolated.
out into his increasing glory.
That's wild to me.
But it seems to me that while the Bible doesn't give us like high resolution, thereforethis is how everything, every domino hits every other domino.
(16:20):
It gives us the low resolution information of every plan he makes is kind of workingbackwards from that or in reference to the ultimate goal of that's where it's all going.
And God gives us these moments of like, see this thing right here?
Trust me.
And of course the greatest evidence of that is
the cross and the resurrection of okay, if God can by willing the death of his son andraising him from the dead, accomplish the salvation of his people, while I don't know why
(16:55):
his timing is the way that it is, while I don't know why my family is experiencing, youknow, the particular things we've walked through or maybe some of your listeners have
walked through, you know, a layoff or a divorce or
you know, a sickness or whatever.
What I do know is, since that's where it's all heading, and he's demonstrated histrustworthiness in the cross and the resurrection, he can handle this.
(17:18):
And so I'm going to be okay.
And so it takes us back to that psalm that says like a weaned child is my soul, like aweaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is a kid that's figured out, I don't
have to have my mom hold me the whole time.
Mom can put me down.
go handle the other kids or do whatever mom needs do and I'm not gonna sit here and justcry like I know she's coming back and so something about understanding God's movement in
(17:46):
history centered on the cross and the resurrection allows me and allows us to understandall right even when you're and dude he's slow sometimes like I don't like it it's I'm not
I'm not happy about it but it's slow in reference to his long-term play
I can trust him.
(18:08):
Yeah, knowing who he is and trusting him even in the slowness.
Yeah, that's good.
And in your book, When God Seems Gone, you map out the anatomy of disappointment.
Can you just explain for our listeners what that is?
They're going to have to get the book to get the detail, obviously.
(18:30):
But can you just give a kind of general overview of what you mean by this anatomy ofdisappointment?
Well, I mean, the anatomy of disappointment is mostly to be understood between the gapbetween expectation and reality, right?
And so the Bible says that a hope deferred makes the heart sick.
And so when we really expect something, really hope for something, and the longer and moreintensely we hope for it, when we don't have it either because of a time gap or because
(18:58):
we've just failed to get it, the wider that gap either chronologically or just throughfailure, the more disappointed.
going to feel.
And so if you're hoping for or your expectations are the perfect family or you know greathealth or an amazing income or whatever and then something happens to deprive you of that
(19:20):
thing you're hoping for it's not necessarily the case that like you're an idolater.
know sometimes we use the language of idolatry a lot in Christianity like that's the thingthat you love more than Jesus but maybe maybe it is or maybe you just wanted it and you
didn't want it more than Jesus you just really did want it though.
Let's say you're like, and it was a perfectly good reasonable non sinful expectation,right?
(19:44):
Like, I sort of expected my body would work the whole time.
I sort of expected, like, to be upwardly mobile, or like I would get a degree and thencome out of university.
Yeah, like these aren't bad things.
And it doesn't make you an idolater or mean your loves are disordered.
It just means you wanted a good thing.
And it just wasn't time or and that's just disappointing.
(20:05):
And it's really okay to go, I really wanted a thing.
And it wasn't a bad thing.
It wasn't like you were trying to steal or anything.
But either because of a gap of time or a gap of failure or a gap of deprivation, I don'thave it.
And that's really hard.
That's really, really hard.
And the wider that gap is, the worse it feels.
(20:27):
And so that's how I understand disappointments.
which you know, the best way to close those gaps is obviously to try and live somewherebetween well, to have like realistic expectations, but I'm a faith guy too.
Like I'm a, I'm a church planter.
I'm like, I help things get started that, want that, that you gotta show up and believebig for it.
(20:50):
Right.
So I'm not at all advocating for therefore set your sights low.
Don't expect too much.
Like, no, no, no, no, no.
God's the God who hung the stars, man.
I'm, I'm in for
trusting God and beating on the doors of heaven.
if we don't get what we asked for, it's because he said, no, not because we didn't ask.
I want to live that way too.
So somewhere in the tension of living life with extraordinary trust in God's sovereigntyand huge faith, we can rest in the fact that he's good and he's going to do what he's
(21:21):
going to do.
as for me in my house and the way I teach our churches, let's
believe really really big but then rest remembering that like when we go to bed likesomeone's still running the universe it's it's always been god
Yeah, no, that's great.
(21:42):
Now in your book, When God Seems Gone, you do deal with several different questions, suchas things like when God seems unfair, and when God seems wrong, as well as some of the
stuff we've already been speaking about.
So just before we go for a short break, what should we do then when God seems gone to us?
(22:04):
Yeah, I mean, ultimately, we want to examine why we feel that way and bring that to theLord, not let it push us from him.
If you're feeling frustrated with God, it could be because it just feels like he's notthere, even though you know that he is.
(22:24):
so that like examining that, like, well, why, why is that the case?
What's happened in your life that's made things feel that way?
You had a series of disappointments.
Are you frustrated?
Just kind of weird is, it, are, there some unmet expectations that you felt like God owedyou the, like maturity is knowing what's driving you and driving your emotions and then
(22:50):
figuring out how to bring those before the Lord and, and entrust them into his hands.
and so when God seems slow or unfair, whatever, figuring out why he seems that way to youand then
Talking to him about it is the stuff of a good relationship with God.
That's really good, really helpful.
(23:10):
Thank you.
We've been chatting with Adam Mabry all about his book, When God Seems Gone.
We'll be back just after these, speaking a bit more with Adam about his life and hisfaith.
So join us really soon.
If you enjoy listening to this podcast, you can help keep it on the web.
All you've got to do is buy me a coffee.
(23:32):
Head over to buymeacoffee.com slash Matt McChlery to make a donation.
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you
Hello, welcome back to the Christian Book Blurb podcast.
(23:53):
I've been chatting with author Adam Mabry about his book, When God Seems Gone.
Now before the break, Adam, we spoke a lot about your book and about some of the contentwithin it.
This side of the break, we like to have a chat with the author, find out a little bit moreabout them as a person.
So you've already said you live in the United States.
(24:14):
Whereabouts in America do you live?
So I live just outside of the city of Boston in a little town.
We moved here.
Actually, we lived in the UK.
My wife and I did for quite some time.
lived in Edinburgh and then moved here in 2010 to plant the church that I now pastor.
I'm originally from the States, but moved over there to help another team plant a coupleof churches in Scotland and then moved back over here.
(24:40):
So yeah, we live in a little town just outside of the city.
What do you do for fun?
couple of things.
I like cooking, not baking.
Bakers are like mathematicians.
not that.
I do like I like cooking.
I we live in really old house that was built like in the 1890s.
And so I like tinkering with it.
(25:01):
My father was a builder contractor and and I've more or less had to like rebuild thishouse myself.
Because real estate prices around here very expensive.
purchasing a home here was a miracle in and of itself, but we got in and then we werelike, oh, this place is kind of a dump.
We have to redo a lot.
we did.
(25:22):
And so between like a healthy dose of self confidence calls to my dad and YouTube, Ifigured out a lot of it.
But I do like construction projects around the house.
Great.
And speaking of your cooking, what sort of style of food do you like to cook the best?
Well, right now, I'm really into making stuff on my Traeger.
(25:46):
So I've got this like grill smoker kind of device outside.
And so I like figuring out how to make all sorts of stuff.
I like to make flatbread pizzas on it are actually really good.
But being American, I like and particularly from the south, even though I live in thenortheastern United States, I'm from the south.
And so I like to smoke barbecue stuff and pull pork and ribs and stuff.
(26:08):
That's a
That's what I like to do.
Nice.
So that sounds great.
And you've mentioned that you pastor a church.
So I usually ask what do people do?
Is writing the only thing you do or do you do other things as well?
Yes, no, I definitely do other things.
So I am the founding senior pastor of Aletheia Church.
(26:30):
Aletheia was planted in 2011 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, right in between Harvard andMIT.
And since then, we've multiplied and grown, and God has been incredibly kind to us.
And so we have four congregations now, and I work with an amazing team of staff and eldersand pastors.
And it's great.
(26:50):
The other lead pastors of the congregations, all
write together and preach together.
And it's, it's really cool.
That church is part of a broader spiritual family across the globe called Every Nation.
I teach in Every Nation Seminary.
So I'm the professor of New Testament and biblical studies for that.
(27:11):
And so those are the main things I do aside from aside.
I grew up in Africa and I went to a university in South Africa.
Nice.
And while I was there, the church I went to became part of every nation.
A bit of a link.
Yeah, I did.
(27:31):
It back in the day.
Do you enjoy coffee?
Yes, absolutely.
Only good coffee though.
Holy good coffee.
Have you ever got like a posh machine in your house?
Like the actor who advertises it and what's his name?
(27:51):
I mean
than espresso guy.
I bet you all the ladies listening to this are shouting George Clooney.
They're shouting the podcast.
It's George Clooney.
It's George Clooney.
Have you got one of those sort of machines or do you have one where you kind of grind thestuff?
We don't have those.
So we have two machines.
We've got this like Breville coffee pot that like grinds the beans and then makes thecoffee, but it keeps it in a carafe.
(28:17):
So it doesn't heat it all day.
It just kind of keeps it in this like sealed sort of like giant Yeti cup for your coffee.
So that's always great.
Fresh ground each day.
My daughter works at Starbucks.
And so for Christmas, we got her an espresso.
She actually asked her this.
So we got her an espresso machine.
And so we've like, definitely benefited from her bringing her art form home.
(28:42):
we also have like little pour over devices and I have a vacuum press.
I don't know if anybody's ever used like the vacuum press coffee, but I've lost itrecently, which is frustrating.
So I'm like a sucker for little gizmos like this.
Anytime I see one of these new gadgets and gizmos for coffee, I'm kind of
I'm likely to buy it.
(29:02):
My brother-in-law has this machine.
It's called a spin coffee machine.
It like it's the coolest thing ever.
It's too rich for my blood.
I'm not going to buy that.
But it like talks to his phone.
And so he can like, before leaving the warmth underneath his duvet, tells his coffeemachine to like make him you know, a flat white and it's waiting.
It is a level.
(29:24):
It is a level that I've not yet arrived to but I've
That sounds very interesting.
So what is the Holy Spirit doing in your life at the moment?
Doing or maybe saying to you or highlighting?
around here, I very much believe that we're on the first little stages of what I hope willbe and what I think will be a great revival that sweeps across our nation and what I
(29:55):
believe will be the English speaking world.
And so for me in my life, you, asked about me.
God's been talking to me a lot about, what it takes to become the kind of person who cansteward that well.
the kind of personal holiness and humility and leadership that's required, to like, if Godwere to say yes to all my prayers, would I be able to handle that?
(30:22):
Would I be able to steward that or would I, would it be like catching water in my hands?
and so a lot of what he's been dealing with me on talking to me about, is Adam, what's itgoing to take for you to be the kind of leader
who can steward the kind of revival that you actually pray for all the time.
(30:44):
stuff like that.
Yeah, challenging stuff.
But good.
Yes, yes, the scary part is that my answer often is like, no Lord, I'm probably not quitethere.
We've just done a teaching series in numbers and I've found far too much of myself in thecharacter of Moses than I would like to admit.
(31:08):
I'm like, I totally get why you're so frustrated.
I would have done so much worse than him.
So, yeah, yeah.
And now you, is this your first book that you've written?
Have you done some others?
I've written about four or five, I believe.
The first book I wrote was a book called Life and Doctrine, which is kind of an apologeticapproach to the foundations of the faith, which actually came out of my ministry here.
(31:39):
know, teaching between Harvard and MIT, folks would come to our church and had a lot ofquestions about, like, who's God?
How can I even know there's a God?
Why is it reasonable to believe in Christianity?
And so I developed
this kind of content around helping people find and follow Jesus, which eventually turnedinto a book.
(32:00):
Probably the most popular book I've written is called The Art of Rest, which came out ofme crashing.
you know, planting a church and like kind of doing graduate degrees and having a youngfamily.
I just kind of went and went and went and never stopped.
And so then the Lord taught me about rest.
And so that book is like, hey, I'm terrible at rest, but maybe you are too.
Let's learn together.
(32:21):
Um, and so it's called the art of rest because like many art forms, we're all bad at themwhen we start.
So there it is.
Um, uh, and then, uh, another book I wrote is called stop taking sides.
It's, it's about, uh, a handful of tensions.
The Bible presents that are not, uh, theological problems to be solved, but tensions to bemanaged.
(32:42):
Like, um, the Bible presents the sovereignty of God alongside human responsibility orpassages about.
you know, victory right alongside suffering or the coming kingdom right alongside like thenasty now and now like how do you how did we deal with those things and what are those
tensions for and my idea in that book is that the Bible is intentionally messing with usto develop our character.
(33:03):
That was a fun book to write.
So and I'm working on a couple others.
I finished my PhD about 18 months ago around the doctrine of the Holy Thank you around thedoctrine of the Holy Spirit.
And so I'm working on taking
the things that I studied and putting them into language, more than two people would wantto read.
(33:24):
Yeah.
Someone's like, you just publish what you wrote for your thesis.
I'm like, no one, no one.
is very boring.
That sounds interesting, that sounds good.
And where can people find you on social media, etc.
and where can people buy your books?
Yeah, so you can buy my books anywhere books are sold.
(33:45):
Most of my books are published with the Good Book Company, but, you know, Amazon Barnesand Noble.
And if you Google Adam Avery, you're going to get mostly me and then also a semi prowrestler.
That's not me.
But you can find me on Instagram or on X or on Facebook, you know, just any of the sameplaces just look for
(34:09):
at Adam Avery or on Instagram, it's at the Adam Avery because the other handle I believewas taken or on my website, adamabry.org.
And that's where I am.
Or you could listen to my sermons from the Aletheia Church podcast.
Wonderful, wonderful.
I'll be putting a link to Adam's website in this episode's show notes.
So if you want to find out more about him or connect with him or find his books, you cando that by clicking over there.
(34:35):
Well, Adam, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's been fascinating and wonderful speaking with you all about your book, When God SeemsGone.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks.
And thank you as well for listening to this episode of The Christian Book Blurb.
I'll be back again really soon speaking to another author, all about their books, theirlife and their faith to help you and your discipleship one book at a time.
(34:57):
This podcast drops on the 1st and the 15th of each month.
So do remember to come back soon and click on over to The Christian Book Blurb.
Thank you so much.
I look forward to having the pleasure of your company again really soon.
Thank you and goodbye.
Thanks for listening to Christian Book Blurb.
with your host Matt McChlery.
Do give it a like, give it a share and let your friends know all about it.
(35:21):
We do hope to see you again soon on another Christian Book Blurb.
This is Christian Book Blurb brought to you by author and songwriter Matt McChlery Get abehind the scenes glimpse into the lives of some of your favourite Christian authors, hear
about their books and faith.
Also, why not check out my website, mattmcchlery.com
Hello and welcome to the Christian Book Blurb podcast where we like to encourage you inyour discipleship one book at a time.
(00:26):
And we do this by meeting some amazing Christian authors and hearing all about theirbooks, their lives and their faith.
Thank you so much for clicking over here and joining me today.
I'm your host, McChlery.
Now on today's show, I'm chatting about a topic that some people might be struggling with,but I still think is a really important part of our discipleship.
(00:49):
is our struggles.
And we're talking about when God seems gone.
And it gives me great pleasure to welcome onto the show the author of this book, AdamMabry.
Hello, Adam.
Hello, thanks for having me.
Thanks for joining us.
Now your book, When God Seems Gone, uses personal accounts to reflect upon and ask somequestions, quite searching questions that we can all struggle with from time to time.
(01:18):
So can you just tell us what was the inspiration behind writing this book?
Yeah.
I mean, as you can imagine, it's nothing particularly lovely because to write a booktitled When God Seems Gone is not going be a happy story.
My family and I, so I'm the founding senior pastor of a church here in Boston and where Ilive.
(01:44):
during the time of my ministry and our lives here, just over the last 10 years, my familyand I have had
a long term illness inside our family that we've been dealing with.
The nature of the illness is such that it wouldn't be appropriate for me at this point inthe history of our family to go into super great detail.
(02:04):
let's just say there's been a long term illness inside our family that's affected both amember of our family and therefore all of us that has just been super hard, super, super
hard, way harder than we ever thought.
And during that time, our
Our faith hasn't been shaken like theologically.
It hasn't gone to like a, you know, how could a loving God or, where, where is thesovereignty of God and human suffering?
(02:30):
those theological questions and even the experiential outcomes of those theologicalquestions were settled for me long ago.
But the, the brass tacks, the dirt under the fingernails walking with God, when it justdoesn't feel like he's very close, is really what, what the experience has been like.
and what the book was really about and how to deal with the experiential emotional gap ofknowing that God is there, but sometimes feeling like he's not, especially in a cultural
(03:00):
moment right now where I don't know what it's like for all of the listeners, but you know,where I live, I pastor an enormous amount of university students.
And so, though I am aging, my congregation is perpetually the same sort of age.
and this rising generation has been taught largely to think with their feelings.
(03:22):
And so it seems to me a highly relevant question.
What do you do when God feels or seems gone?
Even when you know, theologically and biblically, he of course is not.
Hmm, they're really interesting.
I guess sometimes we feel guilty for, for questioning our faith or questioning Godsometimes.
(03:43):
Do you think we should feel guilty or, or is this questioning part of having a healthykind of faith?
I don't know that it's super useful to feel guilty about questions.
Questions just sort of present themselves to us and I'm sure at all that the Lord requiresus to feel guilt and shame about questions.
(04:05):
I God's a big boy, if you like.
mean, he can definitely handle our questions and we are not the first people to, the firstgeneration or the first people within the history of the church to go, hang on a minute.
This feels rather a lot harder than
I thought it was going to be.
And wait, where did you go?
(04:25):
Especially in one's walk with God because it is just that.
It is a relationship that we are experiencing and growing in with our Father.
And just like any relationship, especially one's relationship with one's parents, itmatures and changes over time.
When you're very little, your parents are right there and they're kind of your wholeworld.
(04:47):
And as you get older, your relationship with them hopefully matures and changes, but theway they relate to you also changes.
And as God seeks to grow us up, it stands to reason sometimes that he relates to usdifferently, which can feel bad.
But no, I don't think we at all ought to feel guilt about asking the question.
(05:09):
If anything, bringing the question, God, where are you?
I think is precisely what we're supposed to do.
It's seeking for him in those times, rather than running away from him.
Yeah, well, that's and as you said at the start of the podcast that it's not a happy storythat led you to to write the book.
(05:33):
You also speak in a chapter in your book called When God Seems Silent, you speak about thecritical necessity of lamentation.
And can you explain to us what is
Lamentation, why is it important?
Yeah.
So I'm a musician by training.
(05:53):
My undergrad degrees in music, my wife and I were big music nerds.
And one of the downsides of being a music nerd is that you can never just enjoy music.
You're always thinking about what you're hearing.
And one of the things I've often thought about are worship music in the church,particularly in like the
(06:15):
evangelical church ever since the last, don't know, 30, 40 years of modern Christianmusic.
A lot to love, but most of our songs are in major keys and most of them are pretty happy.
And the good part about that is there's a lot to be happy about with the Lord and a lot torejoice in.
The bad part about that is we've lost the art of singing our sadness to the Lord.
(06:40):
We've forgotten that an enormous number of the Psalms are
definitely in minor keys.
Definitely the color blue.
That we have a whole book in our Bible called Lamentations precisely to give us languageand contours of prayer to take, to take really hard and difficult experiences and emotions
to the Lord.
(07:01):
Because when you're discipled by, you know, our church liturgies, which I know, you know,sort of in evangelicalism, we don't like the word liturgy, perhaps, but we're all, we all
have them, right?
Just the kind of the
the things we do in church, disciple us.
so we're shaped by the songs we sing and the things that we do and the sermons we hear tojust sort of have a, you know, three and a half happy songs, three point sermon that all
(07:25):
starts with the same letter kind of When we are crashed into by something hard in life,that's not enough.
And so happily, we are part of a long, you know, 2000 year Christian tradition.
know, 1500
or so years of Jewish writings before that that give us a lot of language for lament.
(07:47):
And so the critical necessity of lament is learning how to take the language of the Bibleand grieve up to God, not just hold on to it and get bitter at him.
Because if we don't express our grief to God in prayer and lament, trusting that like,he's really good in the midst of all of our really cruddy circumstances, what we will end
up doing
is stuffing that down deep inside.
(08:09):
And that is just the emotional equivalent of high interest credit card debt.
Eventually, the bill comes due and it's a way higher toll than if we just dealt with it inthe first place.
And that's often where I think we end up deconstructing and feeling terrible.
My own experience as a pastor has been a lot that's kind of come around this recentpopular, I'm going to deconstruct my faith movement.
(08:35):
Man isn't really
any original questions about God's goodness or the nature of faith and science.
It's just pain, undealt with pain, unpastured pain, un lamented pain.
We're not the first people to hurt, but we may be the first people to not really know whatto do with our hurt well.
so, yeah, lament is a hugely important part of our discipleship.
(08:58):
And happily, the teaches us how to do it if we'll just read the songbook of the Bible.
Yeah, Learning how to express our pain and our grief is very important.
And as you say, there is language for it in the Bible.
And I guess when you're speaking of sort of modern worship music and songs as well, that'sdefinitely an area where I think you're right.
(09:21):
More language needs to be given so that people have the opportunity to express that griefand that lament.
I guess...
when everything's happy all the time, it also starts to veer towards everyone sticking ontheir happy mask and go, I'm all right, bless you.
(09:43):
But actually, they're crying inside and church should be a safe place for you to come tobe emotional, cry, to lament and reach out to God in the midst of your distress.
rather than just the happy place you go to smile and sing some good songs and drink somecoffee.
(10:09):
Yeah, that's really good.
You also mentioned in your book about God being silent.
There are times in life where we feel that God might have gone or is silent or notanswering our prayers, maybe in the way that we think he should sometimes, that's part of
the problem.
But what should our response be in those times when
(10:32):
when God seems silent to us, how should we respond correctly?
Yeah, well, I talked about in the book, like, if he seems like he's silent, in there,there's an easy answer that that might be the case.
And like other really complicated answer.
The easy answer is like, well, sin, right.
So if I'm grievously sinning, and I don't feel like the Lord is close, like, yeah, ofcourse.
(10:57):
If I if I sin against you or my friend or my wife, and then it feels like my relationshipwith with any of those three parties is not particularly good, like, yeah, no, duh.
On the other hand, the more complicated question is, well, if I'm not, or I don't knowthat I am, if I'm doing my part to follow Christ and he seems silent, then what do do?
(11:19):
Silence is often a gap where the Lord wants to talk to us about something deeper in myexperience.
way more spiritually deep men and women have written about this than me.
And this is, course, the tradition of like the dark night of the soul.
there's a lot to be mined here within
the Christian literary tradition.
(11:41):
But I would just say a few things.
One, God is always talking to us in his word, even if it doesn't feel as though he'stalking to us like in our inner lives through his spirit.
which is what you were talking about earlier on.
Yes, and while our feelings are super super important, they're only really good at tellingus how we feel They're not good at telling us about what is true And so we should pay
(12:05):
attention to them as a reflection of like what we feel I'm not advocating for stoicism andlike ignoring how you feel that's just foolishness but I'm I'm trying to pull us back from
the thing inside you and what you feel inside is like the most important thing about youor even a really highly important thing or a theologically important thing
for you to know things about God.
(12:26):
It is merely one data point about you understanding you, but it's a terrible way for youto know God apart from his word.
So God's always speaking in his word.
Secondly, I would say when God is silent, don't return the favor.
Like don't give God the silent treatment.
That's not what it's for.
(12:46):
Oftentimes pauses are actually pregnant spaces that are designed to get something likedeeper out of you.
I've found
And just, I was just doing this the other day.
I was just with a friend on the other side of the country, walking through a forest,talking to Jesus.
And I kind of exhausted my list of the things I like to talk about.
(13:08):
Like, okay, Lord, I want to pray about my church and like my family and my kids.
you know, it kind of got through like, you know, my money and like my future and like didall my things.
And I kind of felt like, oh, oh, I forgot that Lord, is there anything you would like totalk about?
And there are moments where I think sometimes God is silent because he wants to dig out adeeper kind of prayer and a deeper kind of conversation with us that only him sort of
(13:38):
waiting out our prattling on will actually get to.
Now, maybe it's just me who prattles on.
Perhaps not every listener is like that.
But man, I've got a bullet pointed list of stuff I pray.
I'm pretty systematic in my just approach to life, got a calendar, got it to do us.
And I do the same thing with prayers.
I've got people I pray for and ways I pray, know, building your own rule of life is verypopular right now.
(14:00):
I do all that stuff.
That's great.
But there's a moment where when God's silent and we get really uncomfortable in that, Ithink God's wanting to draw something out of us that's a little deeper than those things.
your book you ask what you call the million dollar question so that was that was gold tome I thought brilliant he's asked the million dollar question so I'd better ask it right
(14:24):
back which is basically why does God act so slowly?
God acts slowly.
Man, his relationship to time is frustratingly different than mine.
It's like, it's like, you know, when the Lord says, behold, I am coming quickly.
And the Bible ends, yes, Lord, even so come quickly.
(14:45):
Jesus kind of ends.
Man, your, your experience of quickly and my experience of quickly do not mean the samething.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I suppose when you, when you've
created stars and galaxies and you have eons to wait for things to happen.
Your feelings about the word quickly are different than, you know, say mine.
(15:13):
God acts slowly because he is, man, he's making the trillion year play and he's doing atrillion things at once.
And thinking about things in those timescales does kind of put things in differentperspectives.
Like he is not just interested in Adam Mabry's joy at the age of 41 as a pastor in Bostontoday, like locked in where my life is.
(15:36):
He has ordered history from creation to
cross and resurrection to consummation.
He's ordered history for Adam Mabry's joy 10 trillion years into forever being distinctlybetter than the day before.
(15:57):
And like, so all of his plans and all of his providences and not just mine, of course, butlike his people's and also our joy in him being somehow extrapolated.
out into his increasing glory.
That's wild to me.
But it seems to me that while the Bible doesn't give us like high resolution, thereforethis is how everything, every domino hits every other domino.
(16:20):
It gives us the low resolution information of every plan he makes is kind of workingbackwards from that or in reference to the ultimate goal of that's where it's all going.
And God gives us these moments of like, see this thing right here?
Trust me.
And of course the greatest evidence of that is
the cross and the resurrection of okay, if God can by willing the death of his son andraising him from the dead, accomplish the salvation of his people, while I don't know why
(16:55):
his timing is the way that it is, while I don't know why my family is experiencing, youknow, the particular things we've walked through or maybe some of your listeners have
walked through, you know, a layoff or a divorce or
you know, a sickness or whatever.
What I do know is, since that's where it's all heading, and he's demonstrated histrustworthiness in the cross and the resurrection, he can handle this.
(17:18):
And so I'm going to be okay.
And so it takes us back to that psalm that says like a weaned child is my soul, like aweaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is a kid that's figured out, I don't
have to have my mom hold me the whole time.
Mom can put me down.
go handle the other kids or do whatever mom needs do and I'm not gonna sit here and justcry like I know she's coming back and so something about understanding God's movement in
(17:46):
history centered on the cross and the resurrection allows me and allows us to understandall right even when you're and dude he's slow sometimes like I don't like it it's I'm not
I'm not happy about it but it's slow in reference to his long-term play
I can trust him.
(18:08):
Yeah, knowing who he is and trusting him even in the slowness.
Yeah, that's good.
And in your book, When God Seems Gone, you map out the anatomy of disappointment.
Can you just explain for our listeners what that is?
They're going to have to get the book to get the detail, obviously.
(18:30):
But can you just give a kind of general overview of what you mean by this anatomy ofdisappointment?
Well, I mean, the anatomy of disappointment is mostly to be understood between the gapbetween expectation and reality, right?
And so the Bible says that a hope deferred makes the heart sick.
And so when we really expect something, really hope for something, and the longer and moreintensely we hope for it, when we don't have it either because of a time gap or because
(18:58):
we've just failed to get it, the wider that gap either chronologically or just throughfailure, the more disappointed.
going to feel.
And so if you're hoping for or your expectations are the perfect family or you know greathealth or an amazing income or whatever and then something happens to deprive you of that
(19:20):
thing you're hoping for it's not necessarily the case that like you're an idolater.
know sometimes we use the language of idolatry a lot in Christianity like that's the thingthat you love more than Jesus but maybe maybe it is or maybe you just wanted it and you
didn't want it more than Jesus you just really did want it though.
Let's say you're like, and it was a perfectly good reasonable non sinful expectation,right?
(19:44):
Like, I sort of expected my body would work the whole time.
I sort of expected, like, to be upwardly mobile, or like I would get a degree and thencome out of university.
Yeah, like these aren't bad things.
And it doesn't make you an idolater or mean your loves are disordered.
It just means you wanted a good thing.
And it just wasn't time or and that's just disappointing.
(20:05):
And it's really okay to go, I really wanted a thing.
And it wasn't a bad thing.
It wasn't like you were trying to steal or anything.
But either because of a gap of time or a gap of failure or a gap of deprivation, I don'thave it.
And that's really hard.
That's really, really hard.
And the wider that gap is, the worse it feels.
(20:27):
And so that's how I understand disappointments.
which you know, the best way to close those gaps is obviously to try and live somewherebetween well, to have like realistic expectations, but I'm a faith guy too.
Like I'm a, I'm a church planter.
I'm like, I help things get started that, want that, that you gotta show up and believebig for it.
(20:50):
Right.
So I'm not at all advocating for therefore set your sights low.
Don't expect too much.
Like, no, no, no, no, no.
God's the God who hung the stars, man.
I'm, I'm in for
trusting God and beating on the doors of heaven.
if we don't get what we asked for, it's because he said, no, not because we didn't ask.
I want to live that way too.
So somewhere in the tension of living life with extraordinary trust in God's sovereigntyand huge faith, we can rest in the fact that he's good and he's going to do what he's
(21:21):
going to do.
as for me in my house and the way I teach our churches, let's
believe really really big but then rest remembering that like when we go to bed likesomeone's still running the universe it's it's always been god
Yeah, no, that's great.
(21:42):
Now in your book, When God Seems Gone, you do deal with several different questions, suchas things like when God seems unfair, and when God seems wrong, as well as some of the
stuff we've already been speaking about.
So just before we go for a short break, what should we do then when God seems gone to us?
(22:04):
Yeah, I mean, ultimately, we want to examine why we feel that way and bring that to theLord, not let it push us from him.
If you're feeling frustrated with God, it could be because it just feels like he's notthere, even though you know that he is.
(22:24):
so that like examining that, like, well, why, why is that the case?
What's happened in your life that's made things feel that way?
You had a series of disappointments.
Are you frustrated?
Just kind of weird is, it, are, there some unmet expectations that you felt like God owedyou the, like maturity is knowing what's driving you and driving your emotions and then
(22:50):
figuring out how to bring those before the Lord and, and entrust them into his hands.
and so when God seems slow or unfair, whatever, figuring out why he seems that way to youand then
Talking to him about it is the stuff of a good relationship with God.
That's really good, really helpful.
(23:10):
Thank you.
We've been chatting with Adam Mabry all about his book, When God Seems Gone.
We'll be back just after these, speaking a bit more with Adam about his life and hisfaith.
So join us really soon.
If you enjoy listening to this podcast, you can help keep it on the web.
All you've got to do is buy me a coffee.
(23:32):
Head over to buymeacoffee.com slash Matt McChlery to make a donation.
There is a link in this episode's show notes.
So go on, buy me a coffee today and help this podcast to keep supporting Christian booksand authors.
you
Hello, welcome back to the Christian Book Blurb podcast.
(23:53):
I've been chatting with author Adam Mabry about his book, When God Seems Gone.
Now before the break, Adam, we spoke a lot about your book and about some of the contentwithin it.
This side of the break, we like to have a chat with the author, find out a little bit moreabout them as a person.
So you've already said you live in the United States.
(24:14):
Whereabouts in America do you live?
So I live just outside of the city of Boston in a little town.
We moved here.
Actually, we lived in the UK.
My wife and I did for quite some time.
lived in Edinburgh and then moved here in 2010 to plant the church that I now pastor.
I'm originally from the States, but moved over there to help another team plant a coupleof churches in Scotland and then moved back over here.
(24:40):
So yeah, we live in a little town just outside of the city.
What do you do for fun?
couple of things.
I like cooking, not baking.
Bakers are like mathematicians.
not that.
I do like I like cooking.
I we live in really old house that was built like in the 1890s.
And so I like tinkering with it.
(25:01):
My father was a builder contractor and and I've more or less had to like rebuild thishouse myself.
Because real estate prices around here very expensive.
purchasing a home here was a miracle in and of itself, but we got in and then we werelike, oh, this place is kind of a dump.
We have to redo a lot.
we did.
(25:22):
And so between like a healthy dose of self confidence calls to my dad and YouTube, Ifigured out a lot of it.
But I do like construction projects around the house.
Great.
And speaking of your cooking, what sort of style of food do you like to cook the best?
Well, right now, I'm really into making stuff on my Traeger.
(25:46):
So I've got this like grill smoker kind of device outside.
And so I like figuring out how to make all sorts of stuff.
I like to make flatbread pizzas on it are actually really good.
But being American, I like and particularly from the south, even though I live in thenortheastern United States, I'm from the south.
And so I like to smoke barbecue stuff and pull pork and ribs and stuff.
(26:08):
That's a
That's what I like to do.
Nice.
So that sounds great.
And you've mentioned that you pastor a church.
So I usually ask what do people do?
Is writing the only thing you do or do you do other things as well?
Yes, no, I definitely do other things.
So I am the founding senior pastor of Aletheia Church.
(26:30):
Aletheia was planted in 2011 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, right in between Harvard andMIT.
And since then, we've multiplied and grown, and God has been incredibly kind to us.
And so we have four congregations now, and I work with an amazing team of staff and eldersand pastors.
And it's great.
(26:50):
The other lead pastors of the congregations, all
write together and preach together.
And it's, it's really cool.
That church is part of a broader spiritual family across the globe called Every Nation.
I teach in Every Nation Seminary.
So I'm the professor of New Testament and biblical studies for that.
(27:11):
And so those are the main things I do aside from aside.
I grew up in Africa and I went to a university in South Africa.
Nice.
And while I was there, the church I went to became part of every nation.
A bit of a link.
Yeah, I did.
(27:31):
It back in the day.
Do you enjoy coffee?
Yes, absolutely.
Only good coffee though.
Holy good coffee.
Have you ever got like a posh machine in your house?
Like the actor who advertises it and what's his name?
(27:51):
I mean
than espresso guy.
I bet you all the ladies listening to this are shouting George Clooney.
They're shouting the podcast.
It's George Clooney.
It's George Clooney.
Have you got one of those sort of machines or do you have one where you kind of grind thestuff?
We don't have those.
So we have two machines.
We've got this like Breville coffee pot that like grinds the beans and then makes thecoffee, but it keeps it in a carafe.
(28:17):
So it doesn't heat it all day.
It just kind of keeps it in this like sealed sort of like giant Yeti cup for your coffee.
So that's always great.
Fresh ground each day.
My daughter works at Starbucks.
And so for Christmas, we got her an espresso.
She actually asked her this.
So we got her an espresso machine.
And so we've like, definitely benefited from her bringing her art form home.
(28:42):
we also have like little pour over devices and I have a vacuum press.
I don't know if anybody's ever used like the vacuum press coffee, but I've lost itrecently, which is frustrating.
So I'm like a sucker for little gizmos like this.
Anytime I see one of these new gadgets and gizmos for coffee, I'm kind of
I'm likely to buy it.
(29:02):
My brother-in-law has this machine.
It's called a spin coffee machine.
It like it's the coolest thing ever.
It's too rich for my blood.
I'm not going to buy that.
But it like talks to his phone.
And so he can like, before leaving the warmth underneath his duvet, tells his coffeemachine to like make him you know, a flat white and it's waiting.
It is a level.
(29:24):
It is a level that I've not yet arrived to but I've
That sounds very interesting.
So what is the Holy Spirit doing in your life at the moment?
Doing or maybe saying to you or highlighting?
around here, I very much believe that we're on the first little stages of what I hope willbe and what I think will be a great revival that sweeps across our nation and what I
(29:55):
believe will be the English speaking world.
And so for me in my life, you, asked about me.
God's been talking to me a lot about, what it takes to become the kind of person who cansteward that well.
the kind of personal holiness and humility and leadership that's required, to like, if Godwere to say yes to all my prayers, would I be able to handle that?
(30:22):
Would I be able to steward that or would I, would it be like catching water in my hands?
and so a lot of what he's been dealing with me on talking to me about, is Adam, what's itgoing to take for you to be the kind of leader
who can steward the kind of revival that you actually pray for all the time.
(30:44):
stuff like that.
Yeah, challenging stuff.
But good.
Yes, yes, the scary part is that my answer often is like, no Lord, I'm probably not quitethere.
We've just done a teaching series in numbers and I've found far too much of myself in thecharacter of Moses than I would like to admit.
(31:08):
I'm like, I totally get why you're so frustrated.
I would have done so much worse than him.
So, yeah, yeah.
And now you, is this your first book that you've written?
Have you done some others?
I've written about four or five, I believe.
The first book I wrote was a book called Life and Doctrine, which is kind of an apologeticapproach to the foundations of the faith, which actually came out of my ministry here.
(31:39):
know, teaching between Harvard and MIT, folks would come to our church and had a lot ofquestions about, like, who's God?
How can I even know there's a God?
Why is it reasonable to believe in Christianity?
And so I developed
this kind of content around helping people find and follow Jesus, which eventually turnedinto a book.
(32:00):
Probably the most popular book I've written is called The Art of Rest, which came out ofme crashing.
you know, planting a church and like kind of doing graduate degrees and having a youngfamily.
I just kind of went and went and went and never stopped.
And so then the Lord taught me about rest.
And so that book is like, hey, I'm terrible at rest, but maybe you are too.
Let's learn together.
(32:21):
Um, and so it's called the art of rest because like many art forms, we're all bad at themwhen we start.
So there it is.
Um, uh, and then, uh, another book I wrote is called stop taking sides.
It's, it's about, uh, a handful of tensions.
The Bible presents that are not, uh, theological problems to be solved, but tensions to bemanaged.
(32:42):
Like, um, the Bible presents the sovereignty of God alongside human responsibility orpassages about.
you know, victory right alongside suffering or the coming kingdom right alongside like thenasty now and now like how do you how did we deal with those things and what are those
tensions for and my idea in that book is that the Bible is intentionally messing with usto develop our character.
(33:03):
That was a fun book to write.
So and I'm working on a couple others.
I finished my PhD about 18 months ago around the doctrine of the Holy Thank you around thedoctrine of the Holy Spirit.
And so I'm working on taking
the things that I studied and putting them into language, more than two people would wantto read.
(33:24):
Yeah.
Someone's like, you just publish what you wrote for your thesis.
I'm like, no one, no one.
is very boring.
That sounds interesting, that sounds good.
And where can people find you on social media, etc.
and where can people buy your books?
Yeah, so you can buy my books anywhere books are sold.
(33:45):
Most of my books are published with the Good Book Company, but, you know, Amazon Barnesand Noble.
And if you Google Adam Avery, you're going to get mostly me and then also a semi prowrestler.
That's not me.
But you can find me on Instagram or on X or on Facebook, you know, just any of the sameplaces just look for
(34:09):
at Adam Avery or on Instagram, it's at the Adam Avery because the other handle I believewas taken or on my website, adamabry.org.
And that's where I am.
Or you could listen to my sermons from the Aletheia Church podcast.
Wonderful, wonderful.
I'll be putting a link to Adam's website in this episode's show notes.
So if you want to find out more about him or connect with him or find his books, you cando that by clicking over there.
(34:35):
Well, Adam, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's been fascinating and wonderful speaking with you all about your book, When God SeemsGone.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks.
And thank you as well for listening to this episode of The Christian Book Blurb.
I'll be back again really soon speaking to another author, all about their books, theirlife and their faith to help you and your discipleship one book at a time.
(34:57):
This podcast drops on the 1st and the 15th of each month.
So do remember to come back soon and click on over to The Christian Book Blurb.
Thank you so much.
I look forward to having the pleasure of your company again really soon.
Thank you and goodbye.
Thanks for listening to Christian Book Blurb.
with your host Matt McChlery.
Do give it a like, give it a share and let your friends know all about it.
(35:21):
We do hope to see you again soon on another Christian Book Blurb.
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